Neither metropolitan area nor county clocked in leading percentage growth, which can be misleading anyway (No. 1 was fracking capitals in North Dakota). Although it is worth noting that they did at times during the 1990s and early 2000s.

So what are we to make of this besides in-migration is finally starting to accelerate after a sharp drop during the Late Unpleasantness? Sun Belt regions generally led in population growth, so Phoenix fits within this trend as the economy gains strength under our Socialist Kenyan Dictator (Did I mention that he's black?).

March 20, 2015

The biggest kick in the head on this trip back home came when I drove past Kenilworth School, where I went from first through eighth grade. Other alumni include Senators Barry Goldwater and Paul Fannin.

When I was there in the 1960s, the stately building was surrounded by grass and trees (watered by flood irrigation), including the mature palms that lined Third Avenue. Teachers could park on the streets, although a number of them walked because they lived nearby. The houses were all landscaped with lawns, trees, flowers, and hedges. In addition to making the neighborhood attractive and walkable, this helped cool it. We went back to school without air conditioning in September.

Kenilworth avoided aggressive attempts to demolish it when the unnecessary Papago Freeway inner loop was rammed through the neighborhood in the 1980s. It also survived the curving of Third Avenue, which destroyed the grid designed to give the neighborhood a pleasing aspect. And the mammoth widening of Seventh Avenue to feed the freeway.

Now a bunch of rocks have been thrown down in front of the school. A driveway and even larger parking lot have been added where the grassy playground once stood. Where we would lie on the cool ground, watch jet contrails, and dream the dreams of youth. The dissonance is painful. The classical revival building set amid all this ugliness is similar to a diamond lying in a pile of manure.

The trouble is that I am one of the few people who would even notice. Like Carson McCullers, "I must go home periodically to renew my sense of horror." But I am increasingly a foreigner here.

March 17, 2015

In the summer of 1976, the owner of Phoenix Ambulance became convinced that I was the leader of a secret, impending unionization drive among the EMTs (I wasn't, but good idea). By August, he had forced me out and made sure I couldn't get a job at another ambulance firm.

He also fought me over unemployment benefits. For a month, until a hearing amazingly went my way, I was worse than broke. I began applying for food stamps but the process was so demeaning that I stopped. Things got so bad that I had to get food from St. Vincent de Paul.

I applied for 50 jobs — nothing. I was 19 years old, very highly trained in one field and had been well paid for my age. Nobody was going to hire me at Jack in the Box at minimum wage. The local economy was still slow; the 1974-75 recession had arrived late. The classified advertisements were an exercise in futility (although I did apply to be a projectionist at an adult theater — I often think of my X-rated career that might have been).

Eventually, I found work at another ambulance company, finished college, left Phoenix, had other career callings (and came back home and was kicked out). Ever since I have given money to St. Vincent de Paul (and St. Mary's Food Bank). The point is that I know how hard things can be in Phoenix.

March 09, 2015

Central Avenue and Adams Street in 1909. The original Hotel Adams, later lost to fire, is to the right. Before it was Central, the main drag of Phoenix was Center Street.

Even with light rail (WBIYB), most Phoenicians spend vast amounts of time in their cars. But you can't avoid history, if you're paying attention.

Most people know the east-west grid of the original city has streets named after presidents, from Grant to the south to Roosevelt at the north (named after Theodore). The least deserving president is James Buchanan but there he is, right by the railroad tracks.

With so many streets in 1,500-square-miles of urban space, there's also plenty of asphalt to give faux Spanish names, or the names of developer's wives and daughters (Cheryl, Susan, Linda, Pamela, Sharon, Cindy, etc.). But the next time you're racing along in your SUV, consider:

McDowell Road, which was the wagon road to Fort McDowell, the supplying of hay to the cavalry being one of early Phoenix's raisons d'etre. Irwin McDowell was in command of union forced defeated at First Bull Run in the Civil War.

Thomas Road was named after William Thomas, a rancher and Maricopa County recorder at the turn of the 20th century.

Earll Drive takes its name from E.A. Earll, who platted the Earll Place homes. The origin of nearby Cheery Lynn is unknown (at least to me).

Osborn Road does not honor the state's seventh governor, Sidney Preston Osborn, who served from 1941 to 1948. Instead, it was named after homesteader John Preston Osborn, Sidney Osborn's grandfather.

March 06, 2015

Whatever the final numbers, the outlook for education in Arizona is grim. Blame the Kookocracy. Blame the governor, wealthy Republican Douglas A. Roscoe Jr. aka "Doug Ducey." Or credit them. A majority of Arizonans voted them in.

Education Week's respected Quality Counts report ranks Arizona 47th overall. The state has been down in the basement with Mississippi in per-pupil funding for years. By no measure has funding kept up with student population or dealt with inequalities among districts.

Similarly, higher education has received ever-decreasing portions of the state general fund. The slash-and-burn cuts that are imposed every few years are never restored.

The new regime intends to double down: at least $104 million in cuts to universities, elimination of all state support for the largest community college districts, and, despite a claim of increasing K-12 funding, a serious reduction there because the promises aren't in real dollars. Including inflation, the actual spending on K-12 will be a 13.5 percent reduction from 2005-2006.

Now, my mother said, "If you can't say something nice about a person, become a newspaper columnist." In that spirit, I can't even credit the Kooks with originality. They are merely playing out a national strategy being enacted in every state capitol where Republicans hold sway.

Even so, Arizona has suffered so many decades of such vandalism, the consequences will be more severe. Real lives will be affected, opportunities to escape poverty and climb the ladder of opportunity smothered. The damage won't stop there.

February 13, 2015

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. — Karl Marx

Nobody seems to be admitting to voting for Diane Douglas as Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction. But of the 36.42 percent of registered voters who cast a ballot, a majority backed Douglas over her opponent, David Garcia. Douglas had no experience beyond a controversial stint on the Peoria school board. Garcia is a professor of education, former teacher and Army veteran.

But there you have it.

Garcia, nationally respected, ran on a solid platform of improving Arizona schools, which consistently rank at or near the bottom nationally. Douglas, rhetorically challenged, ran against what she saw as the evils of Common Core, which particularly resonates with white suburbia.

It surely helped Douglas that Garcia had a Hispanic surname. It helped her most of all that she had an R attached to her name. For the majority of state voters, no matter the self-identified "independents," are Yellow Dog Republicans. In other words, you could run a yellow dog as a Republican and they would vote for it over the most qualified Democrat.

I write all this as prologue for the latest, but far from last, Douglas stepping-in-it event. She fired two state Board of Education staff members for the Thought Crime of being allegedly "liberal." My doubt about that was confirmed when the governor, wealthy Republican Douglas A. Roscoe Jr. aka "Doug Ducey," reinstated the pair.

February 02, 2015

This is the time of year when we see smug pieces in Phoenix media trumpeting the fine weather and making fun of the blizzard or snow in the Midwest or Northeast.

It's an old con going back a century or more — although it was typically the subject of advertising (as seen in the above promotion from the 1950s) rather than of "news" stories.

How can I be so cynical as to call it a con? Two reasons.

First, America had a long tradition of the West being misrepresented as the land of milk and honey by railroads and land barons. In most cases, the reality was disappointing, sometimes disastrously so. In reality, the land was unforgiving, "civilization" was primitive, fraud and lawlessness were common, and many immigrants were ruined.

Second, Phoenix historically had about seven decent-to-nice months and five hellish ones. I say "historically" because that ratio is starting to invert, about which more later. But many snowy places have five rough months and seven that range from livable to quite pleasant. Summer in Minnesota is lovely. So it the Phoenix braggadocio about its "superior" weather has always baffled me.

It is true that many people seek the sun almost pathologically, like the doomed space crew in the 2007 film Sunshine. "You don't have to shovel sunshine!" is a motto that resonates, at least with the 4 million people who seem to be willing to put up with almost anything in Phoenix as long as they get hot weather. I admit my blind spot: As a Phoenician, nothing makes me more depressed than endless sunny days.

January 28, 2015

As a young paramedic, I learned early on that we all hang by the slenderest thread. That thread snapped suddenly Wednesday for Sue Clark-Johnson, publisher of the Arizona Republic from 2000 through 2005.

She was 67, and although I had heard she had been hospitalized, the news came as a shock. The fifties and sixties are not the new thirties.

As a business editor and columnist, I have always had close relationships with publishers. Unlike other people in the newsroom, a business editor supervises the coverage of the publisher's peers and sometimes friends.

I have been blessed with good publishers such as Tom Missett at the Blade-Tribune, Brad Tillson at the Dayton Daily News, Larry Strutton at the Rocky Mountain News, Harry Whipple at the Cincinnati Enquirer and the legendary Rolfe Neill at the Charlotte Observer. They supported the tough, high-impact, sophisticated journalism that we practiced. Frank Blethen has been a consistent supporter of my columns at the Seattle Times.

Sue was my friend and protector during my years as a columnist in Phoenix. Some of the most powerful people in Arizona came to her demanding that I be fired or silenced. She turned them away. Not only that, she provided me with a larger platform as an op-ed columnist on Sunday.

January 26, 2015

A crowd "watches" the World Series covered by the Arizona Republican outside the Heard Building in 1921. In these pre-radio days, news wire services transmitted each at-bat and inning, which were placed on the scoreboard.

If you grew up in Phoenix in the 1960s and 1970s, the media landscape looked like this:

The Arizona Republic was the morning newspaper. The afternoon paper was The Phoenix Gazette. Although both were owned by the Pulliam family, their newsrooms competed fiercely. The Republic was the statewide newspaper while the Gazette focused on the city. Publisher Eugene C. Pulliam was known for his conservative views and occasional front-page editorials. Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Reg Manning's signature included a cactus. Well into the 1960s, news hawkers in green aprons shouted headlines from downtown sidewalks, ready to sell you a paper.

Surrounding towns had their newspapers, too. Among them, The Mesa Tribune, Tempe Daily News, Chandler Arizonan, and Scottsdale Daily Progress. The city gained an alternative weekly with New Times, founded in 1970 by a group of ASU students. Phoenix Magazine was started in the 1966 by the Welch family.

Television meant the local affiliates of the three networks: KOOL (CBS), KTAR (NBC) and KTVK (ABC). Phoenix had one independent station, KPHO, which was the home of Wallace and Ladmo. Radio ran from easy listening to top 40 (KRIZ, KRUX and KUPD). By the 1970s, newcomer KDKB played album-oriented rock with a hippie laid-back style. Broadcast towers topped the Hotel Westward Ho and Greater Arizona Savings Building (Heard Building) downtown.

You knew personalities such as bola-tie-wearing Bill Close, the Walter Cronkite of Phoenix, on KOOL (promoted on the billboard, right). Mary Jo West became one of Phoenix's first female anchors in 1976, joining Close (a crusty guy who was not happy to work with a woman at first). In 1982, Close would be at the center of a famous hostage situation, where a gunman took over the studio and demanded to read a statement on the air. On KOY radio, Bill Heywood presided over the morning drive time, while Alan Chilcoat did afternoons and "sang the weather." Johnny McKinney at KUPD was one of the many popular rock DJs.

Overall, what would come to be called "media" was pretty bland in Phoenix of this era. There were exceptions, and not merely when New Times started to shake things up. The Republic and Gazette was capable of excellent investigative reporting and exposed land fraud and crooked pols, along with plenty of boosterism. Glendale Pontiac dealer, and future governor, Evan Mecham published a short-lived Evening American because he thought Pulliam was too liberal. But most Phoenicians felt a deep connection to these publishers and broadcasters.

January 23, 2015

This month marks the eighth anniversary of Rogue Columnist. That's a long time in the blog world and I couldn't do it without you — the smartest commenters (19,945 comments) on the Web and the thousands who come to read. The number of posts is 907 (!).

I tell more about why I write Rogue on top of my day job and novel-writing here. Today I want to list some of my favorite columns. The nature of column-writing is ephimeral. These stand out even after all these years. Maybe you have some you want to list in the comments field. I've opened all posts, not just the most recent, to comments.

3. Another one, close to my heart, is "Rocky Mountain Requiem," about the heartbreaking loss of the Rocky Mountain News, one of the oldest newspapers in the West and where I was fortunate to work in the great newspaper war with the Denver Post.

4. I haven't written much personal history here. One exception, and among the most popular, is "Ambulance Days," my reminiscences of my days as an EMT/paramedic in the Phoenix of the 1970s.

January 20, 2015

At first glance, one can only admire the Arizona Legislature passing, and new Gov. Doug Ducey (my first level Linked In buddy) signing into law a measure mandating that all high-school seniors take a civics class and pass a civics test.

If I remember correctly, everyone at my high school was required to take a semester of civics and another of economics. I took the new test and aced it.

Too much of our education system today is geared to producing workers, cubicle proles in the New Gilded Age, and "consumers." Anything that educates citizens about their rights and responsibilities — and capabilities — is healthy. That Arizona is said to be the first state in the union to take this step is astounding.

So perhaps I should leave it there and let the brightsiders say, "He didn't hate Arizona, for a brief shining moment! Everything's fine, with championship golf!"

January 15, 2015

A little history: The Greater Phoenix Economic Council was formed in the aftermath of the 1990 recession. Fueled by savings-and-loan grifters and spec-building con artists (Charlie Keating combined both roles), it was the worst downturn the city had faced since the Depression.

Up to that point, of course.

It stung that the "infamous" and "negative" Barron's article calling out Phoenix was correct. But there were enough locally headquartered companies, civic stewards and sane political leaders remaining to be concerned about more than image. Phoenix and Arizona started a serious effort to diversify beyond real estate, to recapture the efforts of the late 1940s through the 1960s aimed at creating a robust, high-quality economy.

And for several years, GPEC was successful. The keys were the first president, Ioanna Morfessis, who had a sophisticated understanding of economic competitiveness and development; also, she was backed by a board of business titans who could knock heads and write checks. One other element helped: the city of Phoenix was still the unquestioned center of gravity.

Unfortunately, the decade saw 40 percent population growth and massive new sprawl. At the same time, most of the city's corporate crown jewels were either bought or significantly downsized and almost all the stewards died or retreated. The appetite to seriously build a quality economy, to sustain the cluster strategy, waned. In this "drunk on growth" atmosphere, Morfessis left.

She was followed by Rick Weddle and Barry Broome, both capable. But GPEC and the metropolitan area had changed dramatically.

January 06, 2015

I am slowly going through some 101 columns to give them greater depth and update them with more recent scholarship and reflections. Today I'm kicking this off with a completely revised version of the 2009 Phoenix 101: Minorities. It should be open for comments. Like some of these historical columns it is a longread, but I hope you find it worthwhile.

January 02, 2015

The state has still not made up the jobs lost in the Great Recession...

Only Nevada and New Mexico among this sampling of other Western states have failed to recover (California has). Even hard-hit Oregon recently recovered all the jobs lost. Note that Washington is similar in population but has far more jobs...

December 29, 2014

This was the most frequently asked question I encountered in Phoenix recently. Admittedly, the Resistance was demoralized by the results of the election. But the query-cum-statement came from more than activists — indeed, they are more likely to be too invested in the fight to allow a crack of doubt to enter.

Those asking are natives or have lived in the state for many years or decades. They are not nostalgiacs. They are intelligent and pragmatic. Some are considering leaving, adding to the brain drain of urbanites who come to Phoenix starry eyed at a "blank slate" only to discover the many barriers to progress and depart for Portland, Denver and Vancouver, B.C.

In raising this issue, I don't want to provoke the usual denial, sunny codependency or angry defensiveness. I was surprised that so many people, unprompted, asked the question.

Is Arizona hopeless?

It certainly doesn't seem that way to the Republicans and "conservative"-leaning independents who vote. They continue to get the place they want, with the exception of such socialist outbreaks as light rail (WBIYB). Some are people with whom I went to school but remained there. They are decent, smart individuals and, against all odds of the Cold Civil War, we remain friends. Anyway, the cons have no reason to complain — but that won't stop it from manufacturing its lifeline of perpetual grievance and victimhood. They tend to be sore winners.

So the question applies to others. How many are there? It's difficult to say with precision. People keep moving to Arizona, albeit at a slower pace. A Morrison Institute poll of more than a decade ago found that a strong plurality of residents would leave the state if they could.

Who would ask such a question? Anyone to the left of today's "conservative" dogma (which would include Barry Goldwater, were he alive); liberals and progressives; people with urban values; those concerned about the destruction of the environment; those disheartened by the struggle to build and maintain civic, economic and cultural assets as befits a big city, and the ones beaten down by the struggle as Arizona has become a one-party, one-ideology state.

Is Arizona hopeless?

You know this is the wrong place to look for booster lies ("Talton hates Arizona"). And as much as I would love to write a stirring column channelling Henry V or Churchill, it is a little late for in the game for that.

So the answer partly depends partly on how one defines Arizona and how one defines hopeless.

December 22, 2014

On the one hand, you felt terribly disconnected from the world depicted by television and the movies. As a child, I had no idea what snow really looked or felt like. My one experience, when I was four, was seeing flakes coming down. I was so excited that I ran to the side of the house to tell my mother. By that time, they were gone. Not until my thirties would I experience a snowy Christmas.

Growing up, I wasn't fleeing snow or staying in a resort. Christmas in this preternaturally green oasis surrounded by the Sonoran Desert was all I knew. And yet it seemed right and possessed no little sense of enchantment and meaning. After all, Jesus had been born in a desert. In the Phoenix of my youth, going to the Christmas Eve service at Central United Methodist Church and exiting into the chill, dry air and canopy of stars, I felt very close to those shepherds abiding in the field. Every valley shall be exalted.

In the 1960s the luminaria on the sidewalks of Willo were decades away. Willo wasn't even a name. The fancy light shows were to be found in Palmcroft and Alvarado, where the rich people lived. Even so, most houses in the contiguous neighborhoods that ran from Roosevelt to Thomas and Seventh Avenue to Seventh Street had some sort of lights. We always had a tree in the picture window of our house. My grandmother had her favorite tamale vendor.

December 03, 2014

Iwas going to write about Ferguson but the reaction I provoked on Facebook yesterday over the name change for the Suns' home made me switch gears. I wrote, "Talking Stick Resort Arena. That pretty much says it all about Phoenix's inability to be a big city."

So far, 50 people have "liked" it. Much debate came in the comments. Aside from a small number of the usual why-are-you-picking-on-Phoenix notes, there was "Pitiful," "We have no visionary leadership in this city," "This all just makes me want to cry," and "Wait'll they move both teams to Talking Stick neighborhood. .....$10 says that is in the works."

On the other hand, I made some fans (so they said) mad for allegedly being unfair to Phoenix. Still others thought it wasn't a big deal. But they took the time to comment. Someone made the excuse that Phoenix is a "young city," a canard I have tried to knock down before. A couple of comments gave the whiff of, "he doesn't just hate Phoenix, he tortures kittens for sport (and from Seattle, which doesn't even have an NBA team!)".

It started as an offhand comment. Then it became clear I had run sandpaper over a very raw nerve.

Let's stipulate that pro sports are one of the many cesspools in our evermore corrupt and venal society. This is true everywhere. Naming rights always struck me as odd. Who chooses to do business with an outfit because their moniker is stuck on a sports arena? Maybe it's like penis enlargement spam. Somebody must be responding or it would go away.

All over the country, team owners have not been content to extort palaces from the taxpayers under threat of leaving. They also want to milk more cash from naming rights. Only a few places — Wrigley Field, Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park — have avoided the sellout. It's one more way to suck income upwards while also destroying the history and even poetry of many former sports venue names.

November 24, 2014

Last week, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics released per-capita personal income (PCPI) for metropolitan areas in 2013. For Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, income grew 0.7 percent to $38.745.

This placed the sixth-most-populous city and 12th largest metro area at 285th in growth against other American metropolitan areas. It was not a good year for growth. The metro average was 2 percent. Booming Seattle ranked 223rd.

The truly troubling number is the actual income. The national average was $44,765.

November 17, 2014

As I wrap up the next David Mapstone Mystery, I am going to have to take a week or two away from Rogue. I'll keep the Front Page and the special report pages (including Arizona's Continuing Crisis) updated. So you should have plenty to discuss. Thanks for your support.

November 03, 2014

Central Avenue and Van Buren in 1972. Note the full block of businesses heading north to the Westward Ho. Central was still a two-way street.

No series of events better epitomized the 1970s and the turning point they marked in Phoenix than the fight over freeways, specifically the "inner loop" of the Papago Freeway.

Most Phoenicians had a vague idea that freeways were a possibility since the Wilber Smith & Associates plan was adopted in 1960. Interstate 10 had been completed to Tucson and was abuilding from the west. By mid-decade it had reached Tonopah, requiring a long drive over largely country roads to reach. Real-estate values plummeted along the path of the inner loop. But by 1970, Phoenix's freeway "system" consisted of only the Black Canyon (Interstate 17) which curved at Durango to become the Maricopa (I-10).

All this changed as the new decade opened and the plan's stark reality became clear. Specifically, the Papago would vault into the air, reaching 100 feet as it crossed Central Avenue. Traffic would enter and exit via massive "helicoils" at Third Avenue and Third Street. The freeway was promoted as being Phoenix's defining piece of architecture.

It didn't take Eugene Pulliam and the anti-freeway advocacy of the Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette to make most Phoenicians horrified. In 1973, voters vehemently rejected the inner loop. They only had to look 372 miles west to see the destruction wrought by freeways. They didn't want Phoenix to "become another Los Angeles."

October 27, 2014

A rendering of Phoenix Central Station, the oval-shaped tower that would be built at Central and Van Buren.

This year, Seattle's core has seen 100 buildings permitted, under construction or recently completed. In central Phoenix, by my count, there's the proposed skyscraper above, the University of Arizona's 10-story research building on the Phoenix Biosciences Campus, the ASU college of law, and a 368-unit Lennar apartment complex in lower Midtown.

It's better than nothing, right?

Phoenix Central Station by Smith Partners would be the most interesting, rising 34 stories with 475 apartments, 30,000 square feet of commercial space and, of course, a parking garage.

The tower would rise above the homely central transit station, which nobody will miss, but retain the use as a transit hub. It has its virtues: more apartments for downtown residents, close proximity to ASU and a shape that would provide a bit of variety from the mostly dreary boxes that make up the skyline of the nation's sixth-largest city.

October 24, 2014

The young and restless — 25 to 34-year-olds with a bachelor's degree or higher of education, are increasingly moving to the close-in neighborhoods of the nation's large metropolitan areas. This migration is fueling economic growth and urban revitalization.... Businesses are increasingly locating in or near urban centers to better tap into the growing pool of well-educated workers and because these center city locations enable firms to better compete for talent locally and recruit talent from elsewhere.

The top gainers of this coveted demographic from 2000 to 2012 are what you would expect: Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Boston, Silicon Valley, New York, the Research Triangle and Seattle.

But some among the leaders are cities against which Phoenix should benchmark itself and ought to be able to compete with: Denver, Austin, the Twin Cities and Columbus.

October 16, 2014

The impending closure of Baker Nursery and Mary Coyle's raises an issue beyond losing beloved businesses or even the extreme struggle faced by locally owned firms in Phoenix. It cuts to something essential to a real city even if it is difficult to define: authenticity.

Critics may dismiss this as nostalgia, a cheap emotion for a golden past that never was (this is one way Very Serious People invalidate my arguments now). Or some academic fad of the latte-quaffing creative class elitists. Instead, it is critical to a city's success.

"Authentic" in connection with a city involves historic roots, local ownership, places that are valued, human scale and encouraging human interaction, aesthetics, a distinctive vibe ("cool"), and a strong degree of critical mass and density. The asteroid belts of suburbia with their chain restaurants and malls are not authentic — they annihilate it. No wonder educated young people, many empty nest boomers and world talent want to move to authentic cities.

As these losses continue (and Mary Coyle's had been dead to some since it left its 15th Ave. and Thomas location to flee north of Camelback), it's more than the city cratering or looking like Everyplace America. It is the death of a tangable part of the civilization, a concept beyond the MBAs that run the country or the real-estate grifters that run Phoenix. A point comes where too much driving is required to reach this or that "iconic" survivor.

October 09, 2014

National readers of this blog will have to indulge me in writing again on sorrowful "news from home." Baker Nursery will be closing after 46 years in operation. Businesses come and go, we grow to love some of them, the verities of the marketplace don't care.

But this is a punch in the gut.

Baker's is a remnant of old Phoenix, the magical oasis, a garden city where people took special pride in bringing the bounty out of this timeless alluvial soil, where even the simplest apartments were lovingly landscaped. It is a remnant of the distinctive eastern part of the city that includes Arcadia but so much more. A remnant of when Phoenix was a very middle-class city, before the stark division of rich and poor, before the miles of linear slums.

What could have been more important for the garden city that once flourished here than nurseries? Phoenix once supported many, but Baker's was the best.

My mother was a Baker's customer from the start. Later, as a young man, I would take her to the nursery. She would select plants while I, well, admired the attractive Baker daughters.

October 06, 2014

Friends in my old 'hood, the historic districts north of downtown Phoenix, have asked me to write about a change in the approach paths to Sky Harbor International Airport that is bringing airplanes lower and louder over these neighborhoods.

Coverage has not been lacking (see here and here). But I won't pile on repetitively because my initial reaction is to be...torn.

When I lived in Ocean Beach in San Diego, everybody knew when it was 6 a.m. That's because flight operations were commencing at Lindbergh Field whose one runway took outbound planes directly over our neighborhood. I lived a block-and-a-half from the beach, in a cool district the tourists usually missed — but the airplane noise came with the bargain.

Cities are noisy. As I write from the 10th floor of my downtown Seattle condo, I hear traffic, sirens, people yelling and, yes, airplanes approaching Sea-Tac (albeit from a higher altitude). During the daytime there is construction noise from one of the scores of new skyscrapers going up. The sounds are one of the energizing things about living in the heart of a city.

Central Phoenix, by contrast, is uncommonly quiet. There's the hum of the Papago Freeway. At night, the Santa Fe train whistles that remind me of my boyhood (one hardly hears the Union Pacific now compared to when it was the Southern Pacific years ago and Phoenix was a major point on its main line). Otherwise, especially if you are a block in from a major arterial, it is perhaps the quietest place in the metro area. It is much quieter than when I was a boy and central Phoenix was vibrant.

September 29, 2014

So Doug Ducey and Fred DuVal have laid out their plans for addressing a water shortage in Arizona. DuVal, naturally, comes off as the sanest, including asking the state Department of Water Resources "to develop a detailed analysis of the Groundwater Management Act and provide specific recommendations for improving the law."

That's good. I don't trust ADWR or have confidence that the law is being adequately enforced or monitored.

DuVal is less convincing when he told the Arizona Republic that the state needs to "go big" on new water projects, including desalination. As regular readers know, the feds aren't going to invest in more waterworks. California and the Upper Basin states would also resist them with all their might (see here and here).

Ducey comes off full kook, including his insinuation that trees are to blame for drought. The last thing Phoenix needs to do is further degrade its historic oasis. Central Phoenix, especially, needs more trees to offset the heat island and climate change.

September 22, 2014

Much has been made by "left-leaning" commentators, notably Thomas Frank, about the disaster created in Kansas by Gov. Sam Brownback's enactment of conservative policies. And yet check out this chart:

And this:

Not to diminish "What's the Matter With Kansas," but Arizona is in worse shape. It arguably offers the better example of what happens when orthodox right-wing policies are enacted in a state without the oil and massive federal investments enjoyed by Texas. That Arizona is a growing, highly urbanized state brings into even starker relief the complete bankruptcy of the Kookocracy's "conservative ideas."

And they own this mess. The interregnum of St. Janet saw a constitutionally weak governor playing defense and never tackling the sacred cows of land use, revenue or water. Arizona's ongoing woes are the work of the regressive right that has taken over the Republican Party.

And yet, polls show at best a dead heat between Democratic gubernatorial candidate Fred DuVal — in every way the superior contender — and Republican Doug Ducey. And no chance for Democrats to gain control of the truly powerful branch of government, the state Legislature.

September 18, 2014

Phoenix-born air ace Frank Luke Jr., Arizona's most famous hero from World War I, with his thirteenth official kill.

Arizona had been a state for little more than two years when the cataclysm broke out in Europe a century ago. When the United States finally entered the conflict in 1917, doughboys and sailors fought under the new flag bearing the perfectly symmetrical 48 stars created with the entry of the "Baby State." While the Great War was not as transformative here as its continuation in World War II, it still brought big changes to Phoenix.

When the guns of August 1914 commenced, Phoenix's population had clocked in at 11,314 in the Census four years before. By 1920, it would be more than 29,000. Although it was the state capital (and home of the "lunatic asylym," which in those days was separate from the Legislature), it was still smaller than Tucson. But downtown had become a thriving commercial center with multistory buildings.

The streetcar "suburb" of craftsman bungalows was taking shape in what are now the Roosevelt and F.Q. Story historic districts and the southeast corner of Willo. The city was tightly bound to the old township, with additions running out to the capitol, north above McDowell, south of Grant and east to around 16th Street. By 1917, bungalows were being built in the Bella Vista addition northeast of Osborn and Central. The Santa Fe and Southern Pacific had completed branch lines to the town, but civic leaders were lobbying hard for a mainline railroad.

In 1914, Phoenix adopted the reformist commissioner-manager form of government. It was meant to tame the corruption of the wide-open Western town. Soon, it was back to business as usual with compromised commissioners. It would be after World War II that meaningful reform would come to City Hall.

Arizona, with 204,354 in the 1910 Census, was still a wild place. It had been only 28 years since the surrender of Geronimo. The state's economy was based on mining, ranching and, in the Salt River Valley, a farming cornucopia.

September 08, 2014

The rampaging Salt River destroyed the railroad bridge at Tempe in 1891, the river's worst flood on record.

Today's downpour in Phoenix has flooded social media. The combination of so many new residents because of the metropolitan area's extreme population churn, sprawl built out in flood plains and the on-the-cheap engineering of freeways makes many believe this is a shocking and rare event. In fact, flooding is commonplace in Phoenix.

As a child in 1965, my mother took me to see the Salt River running wild over its banks. The snowpack was especially heavy that year and as it melted it filled the lakes northwest of the city, causing the Salt River Project to release water from its dams. My grandmother told stories about the floods in the early 1900s, including two that destroyed the Southern Pacific bridge just north of downtown Tempe. In one case, a passenger car was hanging over the edge. "You might not see this again in your lifetime," my mother said.

In high school in south Scottsdale, Indian Bend Wash flooded regularly, dividing the town in half and disrupting classes. The city built bridges but neglected to raise the approaches, so the wash merely went around them. It took years to engineer decent bridges and create the green belt along the Indian Bend.

The 1980 flood (one of ten that hit between 1967 and that year) cut off Tempe, Mesa and Chandler. Amtrak ran a special train (the Hattie B., named after first lady Hattie Babbitt) from those cities to Union Station. Ominously, officials worried Stewart Mountain Dam might fail. And when I returned in the 2000s, the Salt ran rampant again.

September 02, 2014

John Sperling passed on. I am mindful of Horace's de mortuis nil nisi bonum, but Sperling was a public figure of consequence, deserving an assessment. In keeping with the life he led, Sperling died in the Bay Area, not the city whose name he took for his empire of for-profit education.

The New York Times wrote, "A survivor of childhood illness, learning disability, poverty and physical abuse, he earned a doctorate from the University of Cambridge; a liberal former union organizer, he spent years battling government regulation; a longtime professor who did not enter business until his 50s, he became a spectacularly successful capitalist."

The University of Phoenix made him fabulously wealthy. His net worth in 2002 was $1.1 billion and he spent 20 years on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans. With the troubles of parent company Apollo and its stock drop, he was below a billion in 2013.

He reveled in being quirky, combative and rebellious, especially against the education establishment and the government. And yet the GI Bill — authored by Arizona Sen. Ernest McFarland — allowed Sperling to get his bachelor's degree from Reed College in Portland, Ore. Federal student loans turned what would have once been considered a "business college" into a mighty profit engine.

Among the individuals who wrecked the commons, Sperling is right up there. Privatizing profits, socializing losses, the cost and quality of an education at the University of Phoenix and other for-profit schools deeply questionable.

August 28, 2014

The thing about most guns is that they kick, something especially true of shotguns and automatic weapons. When the firearm discharges, the explosion in the chamber and subsequent chain of events and physics to send the bullet or shot at, say, 1,200 feet per second or faster, causes the barrel to rise. In the case of a shotgun, it also sends the stock back against the shooter — in some cases hard enough to knock him down.

I learned this as a child in the West. I learned it the right way, with competent, demanding adults and on properly prepared and supervised ranges.

For example, the first time I ever fired an automatic rifle was when I was nine years old. Yes, the same age as the girl who accidentally killed her "instructor" at an Arizona "shooting range" when an Uzi kicked up and out of control.

In my case, some essentials were different. For example, I had been taught basic gun-handling at an early age. Never take a firearm without making sure it is unloaded; with an automatic or semi-auto, that means not just dropping the magazine (not a "clip" unless it's an M-1 rifle) but also clearing the chamber. Never point a gun at someone "unless you intend to shoot them," said my mother the crack shot. Never traverse a barrel in someone's direction as you are handling the weapon. Even if you know the gun is unloaded. You always "police your brass" after shooting.

August 07, 2014

Even the local media are admitting that Phoenix is back in a housing slump. I mean no disrespect to hard-working Arizona journalists. But let's face it, the Real Estate Industrial Complex controls the conversation, withholds or doles out ad dollars and can, ahem, ensure that offending columnists are run off. So when the local media admit to a problem involving this sacred cow, head for the bomb shelter.

More about housing (yawn) later. The most arresting data come from a new report by the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis. Arizona's per-capita personal expenditures, adjusted for inflation, were virtually flat in 2012 compared to 2000.

And this is "consumer spending" kept afloat with massive debt considering that most wages have been stagnant or falling, and the typical American household saw a 36-percent decline in its wealth between 2003 and 2013.

Other mid-year observations:

Fewer people are working than before the Great Recession, and the available labor force has fallen...

August 04, 2014

Whether through absent-mindedness or a Kookish desire to obliterate the memory of FDR, the state came very close to tearing down the 1938 administration building at the Arizona State Fairgrounds built by the WPA. The loose-knit community of preservationists — the preservation police, as one called it — went into action and the building was saved.

It's exhausting work done by average people. Phoenix lacks a wealthy steward such as Paul Allen, who saved and restored Seattle's magnificent Union Station and Cinerama. Phoenix lacks a widespread preservation ethic, too. There have been successes, such as saving the Frank Lloyd Wright house. And crushing failures, such as Robert Sarver's demolition of two territorial-era hotels to make...a surface parking lot.

Precisely because of these things, because Phoenix does have a fascinating history worth protecting even if it lacked the abundant good bones of older big cities — this makes the battle so important. Cities with enchanting old buildings and streetscapes also attract the creative class and urban-oriented tech workers and startups.

Our losses are profound. Here are a few of the ones most worth mourning:

1. The Japanese flower gardens along Baseline Road.

2. The Fox Theater, torn down in 1975 by City Hall vandals to make way for a municipal bus depot.

July 17, 2014

Iwouldn't dare move to Chicago and claim that Hyde Park is the Loop. Nor could I say Hawthorne is downtown Minneapolis. Cincinnatians would quickly set me straight if I said Over the Rhine is downtown — downtown begins at Central Parkway. The natives in all these cities wouldn't let me get away with it. Nor would the transplants who felt a convert's zeal to protect the geographical integrity of their cities.

Yet people in "the Valley" (Silicon? Red River — of the north or of the south? San Joaquin? San Fernando? Of the Jolly Ho Ho Ho Green Giant?), many of them from these very cities, get away with this transgression every day in Phoenix.

Downtown Phoenix runs from Seventh Avenue to Seventh Street, and from the railroad tracks to Fillmore, or perhaps Roosevelt. It includes the original townsite and some additions. City Hall's definition taking the northern boundary to McDowell is ahistorical.

Water in Arizona is a highly complex issue. It risks being spun as "everything's fine!" by the boosters, lied about by real-estate hustlers and their stooges, or oversimplified as "Phoenix is about to run out of water!" by outside observers. So let me tiptoe in with a reminder of this Phoenix 101 primer, and then...

Some things we know:

1. As with so much else, Arizona is not Phoenix. Even the farthest-flung reaches of the metropolitan area are not the old city. In other words, each part of the state has distinct water issues.

2. Phoenix is not Death Valley with subdivisions. In fact, the Salt River Valley, sitting in and near the confluence of multiple rivers, is the most abundantly watered place in the Southwest. The Sonoran Desert is the planet's wettest desert. This is why the Phoenix area has attracted irrigation civilizations going back perhaps 3,000 years. Phoenix is a natural oasis.

3. Thanks to this and the billions of federal dollars spent on reclamation projects in the first half of the 20th century, the core of Phoenix is blessed with nearby renewable water supplies. The dams and lakes of the Salt River Project delivered 767,445 acre feet to the project's footprint in 2012 and held nearly 1.5 million acre feet in the reservoirs in fiscal 2013. This water comes from snowmelt in the east-central Arizona mountains.

July 03, 2014

I'm not sure if the cottage industry of explaining away Arizona's reality is on vacation in cooler climes or will scramble to attack this telling map that went with a story headlined: "The South is Essentially a Solid, Grim Bloc of Poverty."

Arizona Territory sent a delegate to the Confederate Congress throughout the War Between the States, so the apple doesn't fall very far from the tree.

Seriously, the data come from a new report by the Census Bureau of people living in "concentrated poverty areas." It digs down to the Census tract level, finding that more than 2 million Arizonans, or 33 percent, lived in tracts with highly concentrated poverty. That compares with 1.2 million, or 24 percent, in 2000. The comparable national averages were 25.7 percent and 18.1 percent respectively.

These areas have "higher crime rates, poor housing conditions, and fewer job opportunities." They breed a feedback loop of poverty.

It's easy to blame much or all of this on the Great Recession. Arizona's dependence on the housing sector left it in a virtual depression after the collapse. There's some truth to this, but the problems go much deeper.

June 30, 2014

A year has passed since a fire in exurban Yarnell fire killed 19 firefighters, the deadliest wildfire toll in American history, even worse than Mann Gulch or Storm King Mountain.

Some fine reporting has been done, especially by the great investigative journalist John Dougherty, as well as from the Arizona Republic. Unfortunately, reportage of event has lacked the nationwide heft it deserves. There has been no Norman Maclean to immortalize it. Newspapers don't crusade any more.

The accountability I demanded when I wrote about Yarnell a year ago in one of Rogue's most popular columns has been conspicuously lacking. Clearly tactical mistakes — even inexcusable rookie blunders — were made. But what was learned? Only one weak bill emerged from the Legislature: clear vegetation, if you wish.

June 21, 2014

In this circa 1942 photo of the force, "Star" Johnson is in the middle of three black officers in the fourth row. To his right is his partner, Joe Davis. On the left is Joe Island. In uniform in the second row, behind and to the right of the man in suit and fedora, is Detective "Frenchy" Navarre.

Earlier this year when a Phoenix Police detective was killed in a shootout, the Arizona Republic ran a sidebar listing all the officers killed in the line of duty. The information came from a list kept by the police department. The trouble is that the list is incomplete. It omits the in-the-line-of-duty murder of David Lee "Star" Johnson in 1944.

He was killed by another cop.

I've told an abbreviated version of this event in another column, how it was a searing experience for a small but ambitious city. I've even used elements of it in my fiction. In this column, I want to tell the entire story based on the best research available. This true tale involves corruption, racism, betrayal and revenge in young Phoenix. It also is a powerful reminder that PPD should officially honor Johnson as an officer lost in the line of duty.

June 02, 2014

This beautiful scene in central Phoenix is from 1917. It makes you want to step into the picture and stroll. Not bad for a small, isolated city in a brand new state. More about that later. Alas, today the same location is a blighted vacant lot south of two once-graceful houses that have been turned into the Old Spaghetti Factory, the lawns replaced by asphalt.

I write because of an article in one of the online nooks of Fast Company headlined, "Phoenix is Pulling Off an Urban Miracle: Transforming into a Walkable City." Read and decide for yourself. On Facebook, someone said it came off like a press release. The kindest interpretation is that it represents an aspiration. To make it real, a little history might help.

Although Phoenix's growth is closely connected to the automobile age, the city was actually once highly walkable.

Let's define our terms. By "walkable," I don't mean you can drive your car to a canal bank or a desert "preserve" and hike. Not even the enchantingly shady, last time I checked, Murphy's Bridle Path. I mean the arrangements I enjoy in Seattle, where almost everything — shopping, restaurants, grocery stores, culture, health care, transportation hubs — is a quick walk or bus/bike ride away. One doesn't need a car.

Prior to the mid-1950s, when sprawl took off and never looked back, Phoenix offered such a "lifestyle." For anyone who grew up in the actual town prior to World War II, it was taken for granted.

May 26, 2014

It seems that I cannot escape the toxic blob that Phoenix has become even when working on the new David Mapstone Mystery. I learn that the FBI's Phoenix Field Office decamped its Midtown fortress in 2010 for leased offices at Seventh Street and Deer Valley Road.

The FBI has a long history in Midtown, once being located on the second floor of a modest office still standing on the northeast corner of Third Avenue and Osborn. Back in the hardly innocent 1960s, it was labeled with "FBI" right on the outside wall. By the time I returned in the 2000s, the bureau was in a hulking, anonymous and heavily guarded midrise around Second Street and Indianola, with a motor pool a block away. If you tried to stop your car on the street to drink the Diet Coke you had purchased from the (now closed) nearby McDonald's, a uniformed federal officer appeared and told you to move on, no questions answered.

Now it is in a 210,202 square foot building built and owned by the Ryan Cos., meant to be home to the field office "for the next 20 years." News reports tell me the building won a LEED Silver design award, which shows the moronic/mendacious nature of these greenwash labels. The office is about 17 miles away from the most common destination for the feds, the Sandra Day "I Gave You The Presidency of George W. Bush" O'Connor Federal Courthouse downtown. It is located far from the urban footprint. How can this possibly be considered a green building?

May 16, 2014

I've noticed that one of the most common calls on the metro Phoenix fire incident log, at least in the spring, is "snake removal." All these calls that I saw, requiring the response of an engine company or other fire apparatus, originated in north Scottsdale.

Facebook friends will have to be patient because some of this repeats posts I made there. But the response was enough that I thought it would be worth putting on Rogue. Also, this site maintained by Phoenix Fire, is not nearly as complete or entertaining as Seattle Fire's Real Time 911. In addition, Phoenix has a shockingly high number of 962s (auto accident with injuries) and 962s involving pedestrians and bicycles.

Back to the snakes.

This is territory where my buddies and I in high school would hike to seek out good (and safe) places for target shooting. It was completely empty of people and houses, breathtakingly beautiful Sonoran Desert with all manner of plant and animal life. We never imagined it would be otherwise.

From training as far back as Cub Scouts, we knew to tramp heavy — so the snake would be forewarned and slide out of the way — not to reach under bushes or into holes (hello, newcomers), avoid the terrain snakes like, pause to listen and how to react to the distinctive sound of a rattler. Being heavily armed, including with a varmint gun, helped, too. But the desert was always approached with respect. It could kill you.

May 09, 2014

Ansel Adams' iconic "Noon and Hydrant," showcasing the natural splendor of the Salt River Valley.

Five rivers and several significant creeks converge in or near the Salt River Valley, making it the site of the most abundant water in the Southwest, an oasis going back thousands of years. But let's not kid ourselves. "We live in a desert" after all, the Midwesterners constantly lecture us. So it is right and proper that Phoenix increasingly reflects this reality.

Our young city was established in 1993, when Jack Swilling discovered one of the ancient Hohokam concrete "ground skins" dating from the eleventh century. He swept it off and for years it was called "Swilling's Sidewalk." Others learned that the prehistoric dwellers had built hundreds of miles of sidewalks, surface parking lots, wide roads and — everywhere — thrown down small gravel. From the site of what today is called Pueblo Grande Estates Gated Community, archaeologists unearthed huge caches of red roof tiles, which they believe the Indians used to barter with other tribes.

Darrell Duppa, who claimed to have been a investment-banker lord from the City of London, wanted to call this enchanting place Phoenix. It seemed right: Like the bird of mythology, the city had been reborn on the ashes of its predecessor. Settlers from the nearby village of Table (the original name "Mesa" sounded too Mexican) objected. So people settled for calling their frontier town "the Valley."

May 06, 2014

Despite all the hype, the housing depression continues, with building permits barely above levels of the 1990 recession...

...Growth in housing prices has bounced back somewhat, measured quarterly in year-over-year. But much of it is driven by speculators buying up rental properties and securitizing them. As you can see, it's way out of line with historic norms and raises affordability issues for average Arizonans, as well as a host of other potential problems...

April 29, 2014

Dorothea Lange photographed this homeless family in 1939. They had been picking cotton in Phoenix but moved on when the work ran out.

The Great Depression did not bypass our little oasis city. Even if, as historian Bradford Luckingham writes, the city's newspapers paid little attention to the 1929 crash and most Phoenicians, like most Americans, didn't own stock, the hard times soon arrived.

The severe contraction from 1930 through 1933 claimed two of the city's six banks and two of its five building-and-loan associations. Another, Valley Bank, was on the edge of failure. Depositors were wiped out in these pre-FDIC days. Arizona's big Three Cs of copper, cattle and cotton were decimated as demand collapsed. The state actually lost population in the early 1930s.

In Phoenix, unemployment grew while businesses closed and relief organizations were overwhelmed. My grandmother told stories about Okies and Texans arriving in jalopies, sometimes on foot or as hobos on freight trains. Victims of the Dust Bowl came by the thousands to the Salt River Valley, not, as in Grapes of Wrath, going as far as California (something confirmed by Philip VanderMeer in his insightful Desert Visions and the Making of Phoenix).

So don't believe it if you hear the shorthand that "Phoenix barely felt the Depression." Much less that its economic recovery came because of the "rugged individualism" of Phoenicians. For the second time in its young life, Phoenix was rescued by the federal government.

The Great Depression was the overarching story of Phoenix in the 1930s. And the New Deal not only saved the city and state much suffering, but arguably had greater effect because of their small populations and economic composition. Arizona voted overwhelmingly for FDR, who is shown campaigning in Phoenix in 1931. He is at the wheel of the car as always, with Sen. Carl Hayden and Gov. George W.P. Hunt beside him. It proved a good bet.

April 18, 2014

When the pink-and-white Civic Center opened at Central and McDowell in 1950, it included a "little theater" but the art museum didn't come along for another nine years. Both were considered small confections to the main course: the public library. Things were not much different in 1974, when a young University of Kansas graduate named Jim Ballinger joined the museum's staff as curator of collections.

That the Phoenix Art Museum today enjoys national stature and draws prestigious international exhibitions — and has grown to take up most of the former Civic Center block — is mostly because of Ballinger, who announced Thursday that he will retire after 40 years with PAM. He became director in 1982. No other single figure has done more for the city's cultural landscape — to create, grow and sustain one — than Ballinger.

The reader should know that Ballinger and I are friends. We also were neighbors on Holly Street in Willo. But he first sought me out when I started as a columnist at the Arizona Republic, writing on such issues as the city and state's economic narrowness, lack of civic engagement, poor educational outcomes and difficulty in retaining talent. In our first conversation, he showed his incisive grasp of how such challenges would affect the future viability of cultural institutions.

April 08, 2014

Phoenix is the most populous city in America with the council-manager form of government. Council sets policy which is carried out by a professional city manager.

The only places that come close are San Antonio (where the city manager is the former deputy city manager in Phoenix, Sheryl Sculley) and Dallas. San Diego abandoned council-manager in 2006.

The alternative is the strong mayor form, where the mayor acts as a largely independent chief executive and the city council is a legislative body. Think: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Detroit and Seattle.

Twelve of the 20 most populous American cities have strong mayors. The remainder are council-manager. Now there is at least a boomlet to bring a strong mayor form to Phoenix.

April 03, 2014

Everybody who was anybody in Phoenix has a favorite story about Charles H Keating Jr., who died this week at 90. Here's mine. By the time I came back in 2000, Keating, the disgraced imprisoned former S&L kingpin, was once again a fixture around town. I would run into him at Durant's, where he was cordial but declined my invitation to sit down sometime and tell his story.

One day the restaurant was packed and Keating couldn't get seated. He confronted the day manager, the fabulous Mari Connor, and said, "Do you know who I am?" Without a second's hesitation at a restaurant that had hosted governors and mobsters, Connor said, "No, but I'm sure they can seat you up the street at Alexi's. Otherwise, the wait is thirty minutes."

Time wounds all heels.

I was gone from Phoenix during Keating's glory days of the 1980s. He developed Dobson Ranch in Mesa and Estrella Mountain Ranch in Goodyear among many other projects. The most impressive physical monument he left behind was the Phoenician resort. The name says much about the time: Phoenix was still the center of "the Valley's" economic universe. It would never happen today; the resort claims it is in Scottsdale, even though it in the city. And for all the criticism heaped upon it, the Phoenician to me remains a beautiful place — built within the existing urban footprint — with an apt, evocative, allusionary name.

And mark the day you knew, without doubt. Climate change is real, human-made, happening now with growing costs — and the worst is yet to come. Especially if we do nothing.

Someday historians will note the curious contrasts of our time. So much of the public square is dominated by scolds with their calculators, talking about what we can't afford, how the cost side of the ledger must be the deciding factor in any debate.

Yet these are the same people who block any attempt to show the astronomic costs of doing nothing to stop pumping carbon into the atmosphere.

Those historians will shake their heads at our myths about "makers and takers," "bootsrappers" vs. "welfare queens" and the widespread belief that government was an impediment to the efficient, justified workings of "the free market."

It was always a joke renaming this entity the Arizona Department of Transportation. It was and remains in spirit the Arizona Highway Department, committed to building highways. The glory days were under state engineer William Price (1963-1977), when Arizona could boast some of the finest highways in America, before population growth and underfunding overwhelmed the agency.

Also under Price, the Highway Department began its swerve from serving the public interest to private interests and it's never looked back. You can see an early indication in the odd, seemingly illogical, westward shift the Black Canyon Freeway makes between Northern and Dunlap in Phoenix. This mission became gospel with the metro Phoenix freeway system, most of which was built to benefit private land owners whose worthless desert was suddenly highly profitable because a freeway was coming. The damage done to the city by the ensuing sprawl was catastrophic and is probably irreversible.